Russia Sentences Chechen Commander To Life Term

December 26, 2001|By Robyn Dixon Foreign Correspondent

MOSCOW — His disfigured face hidden by sunglasses, a shaggy beard and a peaked cap, Salman Raduyev, Chechen separatist commander, stood defiantly, after being sentenced to life in a Russian court Tuesday for terrorism and murder.

His last words before being led away were Allahu Akbar -- "God is great."

Military helicopters circled over the court in Makhachkala, southern Russia, adding drama as the high-profile trial came to an end. The Russian prosecutor general, Vladimir Ustinov, called the verdict a "triumph for justice" and promised more big trials of Chechen commanders in the near future.

But despite the hype, Salman Raduyev is the only well-known Chechen commander the Russians have managed to capture. They did kill one other top commander, Arbi Barayev, in June this year.

Salman Raduyev, badly scarred because of several bombings and assassination attempts in Chechnya, was on trial for his role in a 1996 attack on the town of Kizlyar in southern Russia near Chechnya.

Russia has portrayed its struggle against Chechen separatists as a fight against international terrorists, and the trial received wide media coverage.

It was trumpeted by Russian law enforcement officials as a symbol of the authorities' triumph over terrorism.

However when he was captured in March 2000, Raduyev was no longer an active fighter. He has played no significant part in the present Chechen conflict, which began in the fall of 1999, when Russian forces re-entered Chechnya.

He was an active figure in the first Chechen war, from 1994-96, but even then was regarded by some other Chechen field commanders as something of a loose cannon.

Raduyev and 300 fighters took an estimated 3,000 hostages in the Kizlyar hospital, later moving a smaller group of hostages to the village of Pervomayskoye. Russian forces surrounded the village, allowing no one to leave, and bombarded it heavily for more than a week, killing many civilians.

But Raduyev and most of his forces escaped. Seventy-eight people died in Kizlyar and Pervomayskoye.

Other Chechen commanders, called in to help Raduyev's trapped fighters escape, were angered by the casualties.